Wednesday Night Rivalry
Wednesday Night Hockey is the branding used for National Hockey League games that air on NBCSN on Wednesday nights during the regular season. In the 2012–13 NHL season, NBCSN rebranded their coverage of Wednesday night games as Wednesday Night Rivalry. It primarily featured rivalry games, although the network has received criticism for games which do not seem to include a strong element of rivalry (such as Los Angeles-Detroit, Pittsburgh-Buffalo, and Chicago-Philadelphia) are common. NBCSN sometimes produces a Wednesday Nightcap game primarily featuring Western Conference teams immediately following their Wednesday Night Rivalry game. Beginning in the 2013–14 NHL season, NBCSN aired the series NHL Rivals, which looks back at the participating teams' historic rivalry, leading up to their Wednesday Night Rivalry game. That same season, NBCSN promoted the games with the slogan "The Night You Love To Hate". Beginning with the 2018–19 NHL season, NBC Sports rebranded its Wednesday night broadcasts of the NHL as Wednesday Night Hockey, with the focus shifting from rivalry games to powerhouse teams and top NHL stars. The first season of Wednesday Night Hockey will feature more West Coast games and a few matchups featuring Canadian teams. Results 2012–13 season 2013–14 season 2014–15 season TSN's Bob McKenzie and Darren Dreger begin to make appearances on Wednesday Night Rivalry as NHL insiders every pregame and first intermission. 2015–16 season 2016–17 season 2017–18 season 2018–19 season (as Wednesday Night Hockey) As part of the new Wednesday Night Hockey format, "Inside the Glass" reporter Pierre McGuire is now assigned to work the late game of Wednesday Night Hockey doubleheaders while Brian Boucher takes over "Inside the Glass" reporting duties for the early game alongside Mike Emrick and Eddie Olczyk. McGuire joins the lead team of Emrick and Olczyk only during single-header Wednesday Night Hockey games. In addition, Kathryn Tappen replaced Liam McHugh as the studio host for the first half of the season when the latter was promoted to work postgame coverage of Sunday Night Football. On February 20, Mike Tirico made his NHL announcing debut calling the Blackhawks–Red Wings game with Olczyk and Boucher. Ratings Wednesday Night Rivalry has produced successful viewership for NBCSN. During its inaugural season, Wednesday Night Rivalry was called "the hottest new brand in sports" by Forbes. It claimed six of the top eight most-watched NHL regular-season telecasts ever on NBC Sports Network and averaged 646,000 viewers. With the success of Wednesday Night Rivalry, the 2012–13 NHL season was the most watched NHL season on cable in 19 years. During the 2013–14 NHL season, Wednesday Night Rivalry averaged 559,000 viewers, up 26% from its average viewership of Wednesday night games during the 2011–12 NHL season (443,000). The first two seasons of Wednesday Night Rivalry has recorded none games with more than 700,000 viewers as compared to four during the two seasons prior to the introduction of Wednesday Night Rivalry. During the 2014–15 NHL season, NBCSN's Wednesday Night Rivalry coverage averaged 565,000 viewers. NBCSN's opening night coverage of Bruins-Flyers had an opening-night cable record 956,000 viewers. Seven of the 10 most-watched NHL games on NBCSN were Wednesday Night Rivalry games. During the 2015–16 NHL season, Wednesday Night Rivalry averaged 608,000 viewers and produced three of the 10 most-watched NHL regular-season games on NBCSN during their time as the NHL pay television carrier. NBCSN's 10-most watched games of the 2015-16 season were either Wednesday Night Rivalry or Sunday Night Hockey games. References NBC Category:NHL broadcasts